


Hear No Evil

by Pey119



Series: Spooky Season fics [4]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, RIORDAN Rick - Works, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Dark, Flashbacks, Halloween, Horror, Psychological Horror, spooky season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26262574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pey119/pseuds/Pey119
Summary: The doctor-in-training sat across from Case 142, sat on the blood stained padding and the spot the two doctors stopped breathing. "My name is Will Solace. Nico, can you hear me alright?"A jerk of a head. A small showing of the blood stained teeth."Good. Now, can you tell me about your childhood?"
Series: Spooky Season fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910335
Kudos: 36





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So excited for the spooky stories!!! Look out for this one and others leading up to Halloween~
> 
> Warnings:  
> My mind is a pretty dark place and that comes out when I write horror  
> And um...warnings for like...childhood abuse? Child abuse/ locked up/ anything that can go with it?

Case 142 sat against the thick padded walls of his cell, his black hair a sick halo around his head, his arms no longer strong enough to resist the straight jacket. He had been pushing at it for hours. The doctors now found it time to approach him.

Dr. Solace was the third to enter the padded cell. The first two were spit at, bitten, flesh torn from their arms and faces. Case 142's eyes never left the blood that dripped onto the white padded floor.

"Nico, can I sit?" Dr. Solace asked. Will. Too blonde of hair and too blue of eyes but something about him Case 142 liked.

The black-haired boy nodded, his eyes sunken from undernourishment, his skin pale from never seeing the sun.

The doctor-in-training sat across from Case 142, sat on the blood stained padding and the spot the two doctors stopped breathing. "My name is Will Solace. Nico, can you hear me alright?"

A jerk of a head. A small showing of the blood stained teeth.

"Good. Now, can you tell me about your childhood?"


	2. Chapter 1

The house had always been too large and too dark. None of the lights ever turned on. The old chandeliers creaked and swung but never illuminated.

Some parts of the walls had black boards covering them. Sometimes, in The Second, he'd be able to feel a breeze coming from them.

* * *

"Windows," Dr. Solace explained. "Windows. They go outside."

Nico mouthed the word to himself. The sick haloed hair stuck to his bloody lips.

"Please, continue whenever you're ready."

* * *

The floorboards creaked and the chandeliers creaked and the staircases creaked. Every step, every muscle moved, They were listening. The attic was locked and the basement was locked. He had been down there before. Love was down there before.

His room was a five-by-five space beside the back staircase. There were no boarded up black squares in the walls. No creaky chandeliers. There was a switch on the wall that didn't do anything when he flicked it, and a thing behind the door that swish swish _swayed_ back and forth whenever he hit it. High, too high for him to reach, rows and rows of cans sat on a shelf. There were no shelves below it to climb. Whenever They grabbed a can, They would bring something to stand on, would always take it with Them. He spent most of his time reaching for the cans.

The small little door to his room was latched and locked whenever he tried to open it himself. Many times he would lay with his pale face pressed to the wooden floor, searching, looking for anything he could see through the bottom of the door, the opening beneath it. Sometimes he'd see Their feet and boots. Never anything else.

His door would open three times for every cycle, three times before one of Them switched to the other. The First Time, They'd let him empty his bucket into the garbage bag and tie it up. It always made Them turn away, cover Their noses, growl that "the bastard's shit stinks worse than mine". Nico didn't think it stunk. It smelled like his room always smelled.

The Second Time was his favorite. He'd lay there and look forward to it, count down after his bucket dump, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, again and again, over and over because those were the only numbers he knew. But it was always the same time between them. Always on schedule.

The Second Time, They'd open his door. Unlock it. Say "you only have ten minutes", let him run and run and explore. Up the creaky staircases, down the creaky hallways. Up against the black wall squares, able to feel the breeze, _breath it in_. It did smell better than his room, so much better.

Then They'd pull him away, scream that the ten minutes were up, throw him back in his room and lock the door and leave him alone for another 2,880 more counts of ten.

After The Second Time were his worst moments, his worse memories. Alone, disappointed, aching legs and watering eyes. He wanted to run, _fly_ , feel the breeze on his face.

The room was dark and dusty and dry. After The Second Time, he always cried himself to sleep.

The Third Time, They brought him a bowl of green mush. Peas, he heard Them once say. He ate so quick he usually threw up. He ate his throw up most times because he was hungry enough. They'd leave the bowl until next time, hauntingly, reminding him what once was.

After The Third Time, he got sleepy again. And sick. He was scared to fill his bucket too soon and scared not to let his body do what it needed to do. Stomach pains and nausea. Chills. Sweats.

Little things crawled on the floor around him, in his hair and in his ears, in his scrapes and cuts from The Second Time. When he fell asleep, he listened to their sounds. Sometimes the way they bit and ate his skin.

* * *

Dr. Solace gestured to one of Nico's wrapped legs. "May I?"

Nico didn't move it. He didn't speak. His restrained arms and muscles didn't flinch.

Will touched Case 142 for the first time, put a finger to that wrapped knee before straightening out the leg, unwrapping a part of it, slowly, fearfully. Below it was worse than he expected.

Healing, trying to heal flesh, red and bloody circles, gooey things that should have been covered by more skin. Eaten and _picked at_ legs and flesh.

"Bugs did this?"

A nod. The second time Nico moved in his presence. And still, no hostility, no violence, no killing like before.

"I'm going to wrap them back up. You can go back to talking."


	3. Chapter 2

Before his room, the basement was his home. And down there was love, safety, _momma_. Her dark hair and eyes, just like his own, her smooth skin and warm arms and tough bones. The way she would hug him to her chest and sing that he was hers and hers alone. The way He would watch them.

She fed him from her body, there was always enough. She let him run and play and would sing when the darkness seemed too dark. When They weren't around. And when she couldn't sing, when she cried so loud he thought he'd never be able to hear again, he'd tried to sing over it and tried to hug her like she did him. But it never worked. _Momma_ always cried about _Bianca_ , heart wrenching sobs that were too loud and too scary and too full of pain.

 _Bianca_ didn't cry at all. Not anymore. The day she stopped crying was the day _momma_ passed out the screams were too loud and he claw claw _clawed_ at his ears until they almost came off.

They stitched them back on after _Bianca_ couldn't move no more and _momma_ cried until she fell down.

Bianca started to look and smell funny, then worse, and then he was used to the change she caused. _Momma_ sung to him and held him close whenever she wasn't crying. She stopped moving other than that. He could feel her bones and count them and try to match them up to the white bones sticking out of the mess of Bianca.

His ears had started to feel almost right when a baby came out of _momma_ , when she screamed some more and bled and They came swooping in. The baby didn't move or make a noise. He liked it, its silence. _Momma_ called the baby _Zoe_ and laid her in what was left of _Bianca._

After Zoe, two more babies came. They came at the same time, one after another, their screaming and _mamma's_ screaming causing him to rip at his ears again. They took the babies and stitched his ears and he never saw little _Maria_ or _Maribel_ again.

After that, no more babies came. But He kept hurting _momma_ in that way, the way she said made them.

 _Momma_ got sick after _Maria_ and _Maribel_ went away. She barely sang anymore.

When _momma_ wouldn't move or speak and the darkness settled in, Nico would bury his small face in her bloody lap and stare at where he last saw _Bianca._ Sometimes he could swear he saw her bones move. Other times he thought he heard Zoe crying.

He woke up the time _momma_ went to sleep for good and found _Bianca's_ bones laying around him and _momma._ They were white and sharp and not gooey anymore. What was left of _Zoe's_ little arm was with them, far far away from where he saw them last.

Nico screamed and crying and tried to wake _momma_. Cried so loud They came down. Cried worse when even _They_ couldn't wake her up. 

_He_ dragged him up those steps he had never dared touch before and through hallways he had never seen and into the little space he now called his room. A bucket was placed in there. 

Sometimes he wake up and find a bone in the corner. They reminded him of Bianca's. 

They didn't know where they were coming from. They said to ignore them. They said they would go away.

And they did, sometimes. They'd disappear and he would think he was safe and then they'd be back.

* * *

¨Are you sure They saw them, too?¨ Will asked. ¨There´s such things as hallucinations. Your brain can make things up if it´s hurt or sick.¨

Nico rolled his head around against the padded wall. His black hair stuck to it.

¨Your brain could be a little sick,¨ Dr. Solace offered. ¨It happens to the best of us.¨

Nico dug it in his knees and started to rock. His bones seemed to be fighting to escape his skin.

¨They saw them. They saw them. They made me promise not to tell.¨


	4. Chapter 3

The darkness was familiar but sometimes turned. It _changed_. So full of fear, of terror, he'd cry and cry and rock back and forth, would try to hide but had nowhere to go. It felt like someone was in that small room with him, but no one was ever there. 

He didn't know what ghosts or spirits were. He didn't know that there could be something after death, what death even was. All he knew and believed in was the Shadow Man.

The Shadow Man would come when he was least expecting it, when he was half asleep, when he was reaching for the cans or bent over, rubbing his aching stomach. He'd come when the pain was too intense to ignore, when the tears wouldn't stop pouring out.

The first time Nico saw him, he screamed so loud and so full of fear, They came running into his small room. Shadow Man was in the corner, inhumanely long arms reaching for the cans, mocking Nico's earlier actions, his legs bent and twisted and not even holding him up. He wasn't touching the floor. His arms were longer than Nico's body.

 _They_ were even afraid. But as soon as they caught sight of him and the can was pushed from the shelf, Shadow Man disappeared. Nico could remember Their curses, Their screams.

The first time he saw Shadow Man was the first time he saw light. They pulled something out of Their pocket, pushed a button, lit up the small little room and caused more pain than he could ever imagine.

Bright. Too bright. His eyeballs felt as if they were leaking out, dripping down his face with the tears. He could imagine it vividly, smell it, hear Their screams again.

Then everything went dark. He slept. He woke to the sound of his door opening and the yells to empty his bucket, no light, his eyeballs intact, no Shadow Man there but that can missing from the shelf.

* * *

Dr. Solace pulled his phone from his pocket and turned the screen on before holding it out. "Was this the thing they used? Is this what caused the light?"

Case 142 looked up at the swinging lights on the ceiling. The rays of pain they caused. How he had slowly become used to it. The small shadows that would creep over them if he tried hard enough.

The lights flickered. Dr. Solace also glanced up at them.

* * *

They never spoke about Shadow Man around him, didn't even seem like it had happened. But when They were with him, when They were watching him empty his bucket or giving him his food, the shadows would move and They'd get nervous. Worried. They'd rush anything, would even empty the bucket Themselves if it meant getting away faster. Shadow Man made them nervous, but Nico slowly started to get used to him.

He learned not to be afraid. Because Shadow Man would try to knock down cans to him, and sometimes would succeed, but even when they worked together they couldn't get them open. During the Second Time he'd run through the house with him, up and down the hallways, his long arms stretching across the walls and knocking around the creaky chandeliers.

They saw. They plotted.

The long arms still scared him, no matter what. Their inhuman proportions. The way Shadow Man's legs would look broken. The wrong ways they'd bend. How he couldn't control them but he still moved wherever Nico went. How cold it got around him. How he'd _expand_ when They tried to do anything against him.

They first brought in a large book covered in dust. Nico couldn't see it well, he couldn't see anything. They had _lights_. In Their hands and on the creaky chandeliers. But when he finally found the courage to peek through his fingers, after they read things that didn't make any sense, he'd see Shadow Man rise over the wall, long arms expanding, covering the kitchen, broken legs seeping blood from the cracks and the creaky floorboards.

They ran. They didn't lock him back in his room. He wasn't sure where They went, but it was the longest he had in the house alone. 

He didn't like how the chandeliers hurt him now, how bright they were, how his eyeballs burned and screamed. How he had to cover them if he got too close. How he hid in his small room anyways because it didn't have the light.

But then he got curious. His door remained open. He thought about love and _momma_. Wanted to see if Shadow Man would help him get her.

"Mister...Mister Shadow Man...can you help me get my _momma_?"

It had been the first time he spoke in years, since he was down there with her, since he could ask for lullabies and songs and what happened to _Bianca_. His throat ached and his eyes watered, and coughs burst out of his vacant chest.

Shadows covered the creaky chandelier outside his room. He took a step out, then another, saw Shadow Man against the wall, holding a long arm out.

_I'll save you_


	5. Chapter 4

We live because of the dead

* * *

Dr. Solace started to get jumpy. Those who watched prepared to step in. Shadows skirted across the lights.

* * *

Shadow Man led him to the basement door, a door Nico hadn't tried to touch in a long time. Finding it locked always led to disappointment. 

But this time, Shadow Man opened it. And with the door opening also came that smell he had almost forgotten.

The smell of _Bianca_ , of _Zoe_ , the smell that started when _Bianca_ stopped moving and got stronger when _Zoe_ joined her.

" _Momma_!"

" _Nico!"_

At the sound of his name Nico flew down the steps, kicking up dust, sneezing and coughing but finding who he had left. _Momma_ sat where he last saw her, not having moved an inch, smelling and melting and eyeballs having fallen to the foor.

Just like _Bianca_ had once looked. But now _Bianca_ and _Zoe_ were just white bones.

* * *

"I believe you, Nico, I do...but remember what I said about hallucinations? Maybe your brain was sick. It was tricking you."

"My brain's not sick! He unlocked the door!"

A voice spoke in Dr. Solace's earpiece. Police monitoring. "The door's lock was broken by unknown means"

* * *

Shadow Man spread over the basement as Nico screamed for his _momma_ to wake up. His arms and his legs covered the walls and ceiling and floor.

His arms knocked the boards off the small rectangles. _Snap snap bang_ Dust covered the floor and _light_ came in.

He felt like his eyes were gonna fall out like his _momma's_ had. That same pain he felt when They brought out the light.

Shadow Man kept pointing to the light. 


	6. Chapter 5

There was glass in his feet and splinters in his hands and bones in his pockets. He took parts of _momma_ and parts of _Bianca_ and parts of _Zoe._ _Momma's_ eyes in his right pocket. Big bones that belonged to _Bianca_ and little bones that belonged to _Zoe_ in the other. 

There was glass on the ground around the light-producing rectangle and there was broken wood to pile and climb up. He could feel the air from the rectangle as he felt it in the hallways, could feel it and _breath it in breath it in_

His splintered fingers grabbed the edge of the rectangle and got fistfuls of glass but Shadow Man said not to let go. He said to go through the rectangle. He said to _run run run_ and never look back.

_Run boy, this isn't the world for you_

_Run boy, the light and shadows will guide you_

_I can't go_

_i'm stuck here_

_in this place_

_in these walls_

_Run boy, into the light_

_Run boy, before They come back_

_Shadows will guide you_

_those like me_

_but don't make friends because they can never leave_

_they can never leave their walls_

_their places like this_

_For when you die in a place,_

_that's where you'll forever exist_


	7. Chapter 6

Dr. Solace didn't move away from Nico despite the shadows that seemed to grow. There was something about Case 142 that Dr. Solace liked.

* * *

"I don't want to leave you, Mr. Shadow Man!"

~

"I don't want to go!"

~

"Come with me! You gotta! Please!"

~

His arms shook and his muscles tore and his eyeballs started to melt again. He stayed there, hanging from his arms, fighting with something he loved as much as _momma_. 

Maybe that was just tears, not blood, but he'd never know.

~

"Please, I can't go without you!"

* * *

"Nico, I want you to calm down," Dr. Solace spoke. Soft. Quiet. Relaxing. He held a hand out and laid it on Nico's leg, mirrored what he had done earlier, move it down the leg but didn't unwrap it. "I won't deny you anymore. Just promise to stay calm."

Nico's hands moved against the restraints. The rest of his body acted as if he had no muscles at all.

* * *

Shadow Man was spread over the basement floors and the basement walls. His fingers were longer than Nico's face and his legs were bent upside down. His face was just shadow and would forever just be shadow.

_The shadows will guide you, others like me._

_The shadows love you_

_I love you_

_Don't you see?_

_You need to run, boy. You need to run_

_before They return_

_You need to run and never look back_

_not for momma or bianca or zoe_

_not for me or the eyes or the bones_

_not for your room or the hallways or Them_

_especially not for Them_

_If you don't run you'll die here,_

_just like me_

* * *

Nico rolled the back of his head against the padded wall as a single tear ran down his cheek. It felt too much like his eyeballs were melting. It reminded him too much of _momma_.

"Dr. Solace..."

"Yeah, Nico?"

"Shadow Man doesn't lie. He didn't lie. They're here with me, now."

"Who is, Nico?"

"The dead."


	8. Chapter 7

_Run boy, run boy_

The chant echoed in his ears.

_Run boy, run boy_

It was too far and too near

_Run boy, run boy_

It was everywhere

_Run boy, run boy_

The dead were everywhere.

Nico did what he had to do. He did what Shadow Man made him do. He crawled out of that rectangle, into the light, took off running because that's all he knew to do.

Shadow Man didn't follow. His long arms couldn't stretch into the light.

But there were other shadows. When his eyes stopped melting and the light wasn't so painful, he could see the shadows. They ran alongside him until they fell back. They crept out of tall things and short things and things he had never seen before. They crept out of himself.

And they all whispered.

_Run boy, run boy_

When his legs hurt too bad and his eyes had melted away, they whispered before he could stop.

_RUN BOY!_

Loud, too loud. Yelling and screaming and whispering and screaming

_Run boy_

_Run_

_never stop_

_never stop_

_run_

_keep running_

_They're gonna get you_

So loud like _momma's_ cries and _Zoe's_ cries. His legs collapsed but they kept on screaming and everything hurt but they didn't stop.

He tore tore _tore_ at his ears and they bled bled _bled_ onto the ground and they still didn't stop

_They're coming_

_They're gonna get you_

_Run!_

They sounded like Shadow Man but they'd never be him. His legs refused to move and listen to them. He couldn't hear anything and one of his ears was in his hand.

Blood

dripping

dripping

_drenching_

He wanted _momma_

* * *

Dr. Solace moved his hand to Case 142's cheek, then to the sewn-on ears and the blood-clotted hair.

"You don't have to run anymore, They're never gonna get you. You're safe here."

The shadows whispered different. _Run run run,_ they still chanted. Case 142 could only ignore them when looking into Dr. Solace's eyes, and maybe that was what he liked about him.


	9. Chapter 8

Authorities found a malnourished boy deep in a forest, ten miles away from a rare fishing spot after a call-in. Covered in blood and feces. His own ear in his hand. Exhausted and unconscious.

They never found the building he had escaped from and never found the bodies the bones in his pockets completed, the liquidated _eyes_ in his pockets completed.

His surgery lasted for hours. The hospital put so many tubes in him you could barely see the signs that something was _wrong_.

His fingerprints didn't lead to any records. His blood was closely related to a serial killer and a woman that had both gone missing over a decade before.

Then he woke up.

Two nurses were knocked unconscious. A doctor's nose was broken. He was moved to the psych floor and then to the psych hospital, right into the padded room, eventually into Dr. Solace's care.

And there was something about Dr. Solace that Case 142 liked. And there was something about Nico that Dr. Solace liked.

And his ears were reattached and healing, and the tube down his nose and throat gave him nutrients, and his pale skin was gaining some color, but his mind didn't heal.

Never healed.

He killed doctors before Solace and hurt nurses. He tore flesh with his teeth and broke necks with his thighs.

But there was something about him that Dr. Solace liked.

Their first meeting:

"My name is Will Solace. Nico, can you hear me alright?"

A jerk of a head. A small showing of the blood-stained teeth.

"Good. Now, can you tell me about your childhood?"

Their second:

"You don't have to run anymore, They're never gonna get you. You're safe here."

Their third:

"The shadows, you said they were the dead?"

A nod. "That's what Shadow Man said."

"And there are some here?"

That nod.

"And the forest they found you in?"

Another.

"And Shadow Man was in the house you grew up in, so he died there?"

A soft whisper, "I think."

"And they help you?"

He shook his head.

"Do they scare you?"

A nod again.


	10. Chapter 9

Dr. Solace entered the padded room and noticed the shadows that pooled around him. They covered the camera in the corner and the lights above them.

Nico's hands were straining again and the rest of his muscles didn't seem to work. Blood soaked the side of his white shirt and pants and that white padded floor. His ear lay in the pool of it.

* * *

"How did you do it?" Dr. Solace asked. The ear had been too far gone after too many stitching back-ons. "You were still in the straightjacket."

Case 142 rubbed his head against the padded floor and _shook, shivered_.

"Nico, I'm just trying to help. And I...I believe you. I believe you about the shadows. I don't think they were hallucinations."

The lights went dark.


	11. Chapter 10

Will saw the dead and the shadows and heard Nico's labored breaths. They covered the lights, covered the cameras, covered his earpiece. They ran up Nico's legs, over his wrapped ear, over his restrained arms. They wanted him out they wanted him out they wanted him out

They didn't speak to him but he heard their whispers.

_Run run run_

_Run for us_

_run, you can get out!_

_he'll help you get out_

_RUN_

They blocked the door and his heart raced but he knew what he had to do. The shadows told him what he was already thinking. He ran to Nico, knew Case 142 wasn't crazy but a victim, took the straitjacket off and pulled him to his feet.

"We need to go."

He thought about their plans, what they were going to do to him, how his brain was going to get jumbled and ruined and destroyed. He liked Case 142. And he knew why.

He was still him. A lobotomy hadn't gotten him yet.

But they needed to run. They needed to run. The dead warned of what killed them.


	12. Chapter 11

There was something about Case 142 that Will liked. Enough to run away with him. Enough to follow him until they couldn't breathe and follow him some more. 

The woods were dark and deep and dangerous to roam. The public didn't come near them, not much, not far in. The dead called it their own.

And what once hid the house They used to hold Case 142 now held the house they could escape to.

Nico collapsed through the doors and into the arms of the Shadow Man. Exhaustion rattled from his mouth and lungs and escaped into the musty air. His legs were out and his ears were in his hands again and his head fell onto the Shadow Man's chest.

Case 142 was asleep, and the Shadow Man was staring at Dr. Solace, and everything was tense until the dead realized what the dead could always see. 

What you would die for. Who Will would die for.

The floors and chandeliers creaked and the wood crackled to life when he started that fireplace. He found Their bones in the place Nico once called his room, and Shadow Man said he had killed them without saying a word, and Will heard Their screams and heard nothing at all.

He didn't care. He kicked Their bones. Case 142 told him everything he needed to know about Them. 

Shadow Man showed him the farm outside and the garden he could grow. He showed him the barn where the bones of Nico's two other sisters laid. He showed him where he could bury them.

Case 142 sat against the wooden wall, his black hair in a bun on top of his head, his ears gone and his head wrapped and stitched. He had expressed how much he hated noise. Will knew he deserved anything he wanted. 

Dr. Solace entered the room with a blanket and a plate of food. Case 142's eyes never left the fireplace.

"Nico, can I sit?" Dr. Solace asked. Will. Too blonde of hair and too blue of eyes but something about him Case 142 liked.

The black-haired boy nodded, his eyes sunken from undernourishment, his skin scarred from his past.

The could-have-been doctor sat across from Case 142, sat on the blood-stained floor and the spot They stopped breathing. His lips moved enough to be read. "Here, eat."

A jerk of a head. A small showing of the blood-stained teeth. 

He gave him that plate and stirred the fire and watched Shadow Man climb over the walls. His limbs grew and grew. The dead supervised. The dead watched. The dead protected the living from anything that grew too near, and protected the bones in their graves in the backyard, and protected Case 142 like he was their own.


End file.
